Gay Politics, Visual Culture and Photography

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Alan Turing exhibition

A sad part of history for the LGBT community is that many people while doing fantastic work for their country were also persecuted by their country. One of the best examples of this is Alan Turing, a codebreaker working in the UK during the second world war. He was instrumental in breaking the German Enigma codes and was a brilliant mathematician. However he was also persecuted (and convicted of crimes) because of his sexuality.

I won’t go into all the details about Turings accomplishments and his treatment. You can read about that on Wikipedia here, including the fact that he was forced to accept treatment with female hormones for his homosexuality by the government. But the main link talks about an exhibition of his effects and writings that is currently going on in England as part of LGBT history month. For those of you who are not aware of LGBT history this is a good introduction and serves to illustrate why many people in the community try to raise awareness for these people who for too long were ignored.

It’s not about special treatment of LGBT people; it’s about making sure that they get the same treatment as other contributors to world good, something that in those days never happened.